Peter Wilfred James

Peter Wilfred James (1930–2014) was an English botanist and lichenologist. He was a pioneer in the study of lichens as "environmental indicators, especially in atmospheric pollution".[1]

Peter W. James grew up in Sutton Coldfield, which was then a rural suburb of Birmingham. He graduated with a B.Sc. in botany from the University of Liverpool. There he enrolled as a Ph.D. student with the intention of studying lichenology, but never completed his doctorate. In 1955 he started work as a lichen specialist at London's Natural History Museum. He spent his career there, became a deputy Keeper of Botany, and retired in 1990. In 1958 he was one of the founders of the British Lichen Society. From 1958 to 1977 he was the editor of the British Lichen Society's journal The Lichenologist.[1]

Many of Peter's publications are landmarks in the recent history of lichenology. Of his earlier works are his "New checklist of British Lichens" (1965) and his major contribution to Ursula Duncan's Introduction to British Lichens (1970) – both were a major stimulus to lichen taxonomy and field-studies in NW Europe. Other landmarks include, for example, his paper on cephalodia (with Aino Henssen, 1976), the preliminary prospectus of lichen communities in the British Isles (with David Hawksworth and Francis Rose, 1977), and the monographs on Nephroma (with Joy White, 1987, 1988).[2]

He was a coeditor and senior contributor for editor-in-chief Ole William Purvis's Lichen Flora of Great Britain of Ireland (1992).[2][3] James contributed to the sections on Agyrium, Degelia, Megalospora, and Megaspora.[4]

His interests extended overseas to temperate South America as well as Australia, New Zealand and the Atlantic islands. He was a founder member, acting treasurer and first president of the International Association for Lichenology and co-ordinated its first field meeting in the Austrian Alps in 1971.[1]